Ensnarement
by elliwoodd
Summary: Ensnare [en-snair] to capture in, or involve as in, to be ensnared by lies. Toms perfect; he's a gentleman, hardworking and charismatic but somethings off. Hermione notices. What seems like a harmless fling turns into something much worse. What will Hermione do when shes got blood on her hand's, a blackmailer and an ever-persistent feeling that its just about to get worse.


September 9th 2018

Hermione had a piece of paper with her schedule printed on it and a bad feeling Harry might have been right about Slughorn's class after all.

The teacher had yet to appear, the supply closet was barricaded with stacks of boxes piled in the front of it and the desks were littered with comical flasks and other varying pieces of potentially dangerous equipment. What was worse though, was that  
none of the students seemed to notice the dismay. They all appeared to be taking drags of their cigarettes and very blatantly checking each other out near the windows. Seriously, this was supposed to be a learning environment, not a club on the strip  
somewhere. Only Theo, if she'd remembered his name correctly, was seated at an actual seat, even though he seemed to be vandalising the desk with highlighters. Hermione felt envious that she wasn't daring enough to do anything but take a seat closer  
to the unthreatening Theo. She really hated being the new kid sometimes.

She just about took her equipment out of her newly brought backpack, when she heard a bark of laughter. Curious Hermione looked up and walking through the door she saw the most beautiful group of men she had ever seen in her life. Looking as though they  
had just come from 1940's gang, with their matching leather jackets and neatly parted hair. Two of the men had perfectly straight platinum blond hair, so bright it could be classed as white, they must be somehow related. One of the men had dark brown  
hair with slightly tousled waves and the others hair was jet black, so neatly combed it must have taken hours. Seriously, who even looks like that anymore! Hermione thought incredulously, they even had identical smirks on their faces. Do people actually  
smirk in real life? I thought that was only in books. Deciding she had already let herself be distracted by the ongoings of her fellow students long enough, she went back to organising her desk. That was a lot more appealing than letting herself turn  
into a blithering mess of hormones, at the sight of some very attractive men. That was what she thought until she saw one of said men strutting straight towards her.

He smiled at Hermione, who was sitting with her ankles crossed under her chair and hands folded neatly on her heavily graffitied desk. "Let me guess, you're new here right?" the black-haired beauty asked. As he leant into her personal space, allowing  
her a waft of his rather intoxicating cologne.

"Yes," Hermione tried to keep her sniffing to a minimum she didn't want people thinking she was crazy already. "I started here last week, but I think maybe taking this class wasn't one of the best decisions I've ever made, it seems a bit-" Hermione pointedly  
moved her gaze over to the snogging teens in the corner "haywire."

"Your right, this class can be rather-" He glanced back at his group, who were standing at the window, eyeing them with something like anticipation. As he turned back around a rather predatory smirk crossed his face. She decided right then that she rather  
liked being on the end of look. "animalistic. I'm Riddle, by the way, Tom Riddle" he held out his hand.

"Hermione Granger," she murmured as she shook his hand, his grip was firm and commanding. Can someone's grip even be commanding? Really girl get yourself together, it's not like you've never shaken someone's hand before. Just as they released hands he  
spoke up again.

"I remember when I was a new kid here." He laughed to himself. "I didn't know anyone and I could have used someone without" - he glanced at his group-"an agenda to show me the ropes, especially when that someone got me into a lot of trouble." He shook  
his head as if recalling something.

"What, and you have no agenda?" Hermione said, surprised to a hear a flirting lilt to her voice.

An easy smile spread across Tom's face. He raised one eyebrow at her. "And to think I wasn't going to come over here."

Hermione blushed. She didn't usually get involved with rocker type guys- but then again, none of them had ever pulled the desk next to her even closer, plopped down beside her, and stared at her with eyes quite so blue.

Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out a green card with the number 7 printed on it. "This is my room number. Come by anytime." The card had a magnificent snake design on it and she wondered how and when he'd had these printed, her own was only plain  
white. But before she could answer- and who knew what she would have answered- the minute warning bell rang.

The other kids filed into the desks around her, out of the corner of her eye, she could feel Riddle sneaking peeks at her. She felt flattered- and nervous, then frustrated with herself. She'd been at this school for what one day and already had guys playing  
around in her mind.

She looked over at Tom, who caught her looking and winked, then started something down on a piece of paper. Staggering good looks aside, he did seem like a useful person to know. Like her, he had been new at some point and seemed well adjusted to the  
school's lifestyle. Something she would have to learn quickly by looks of it. And he was nice to her. She thought about that card with his room number on, hoping he didn't give those out freely. They could be...friends. Maybe then she would stop feeling  
quite so obviously out of place at Hogwarts University. Maybe then she'd be able to forgive the fact that the only window in the room was the size of a business envelope. Maybe then she'd be able to forget the nose-tickling odour of peroxide emanating  
from the bleached-blond chick in front of her. Maybe then she could pay attention to the jolly, moustached teacher, who'd looked like he ate six eclairs this morning already if the amount of cream he had down his shirt had been anything to go by.

Seriously how was she supposed to survive the next 3 years in this class when the teacher couldn't even spell cultivating properly. Jeez, Harry really had been right. Just then, a paper aeroplane skidded across her schedule and landed on the floor. She  
checked to see if the teacher had noticed, but he was busy tearing through a piece of chalk as he wrote something on the board.

Hermione glanced to her left, only to see Tom motioning with his chin to pick the paper plane up. She bent down to reach for it and saw neat black writing on its wing.

 _Already looking bored?_

 _We're in this hellhole until lunch._

That had to be a joke. Hermione double-checked her schedule and realized with horror that all three of her morning classes were in the same room. She heard a guffaw, Tom must have seen her face.

Three hours later, or a hundred and eighty torturous minutes later, Tom was leading Hermione to the lunch hall. "What did you think?" he asked.

"You were right," Hermione said numbly, still recovering from how painfully bleak her first three hours of class had been. "Why would anyone teach such a depressing subject?" It really had been awful she thought to herself.

"Aw, Slughorn will ease up soon. He's always this bad the first semester back. Anyway," Tom chuckled, it was heavenly, "it could have been worse. You could have gotten stuck with Professor Lockhart."

Hermione glanced down at her schedule. "I have him for politics in the afternoon." She had a very bad feeling in her gut, that by the next weekend she was going to regret all her classes.

When they finally crossed into, what Hermione would say is the bleakest cafeteria she had ever been in, did Tom finally speak up again. And what felt like the sixteenth time that day, did Hermione realise how insanely attractive he was again.

"Avoid the soup at all costs," he coached as they followed the crowd into the queue. "The pizza's fine, the chicken's okay and so is the pasta. Do you like lasagna?"

"I'm a vegetarian," Hermione provided. Though she wasn't sure if she would be for very long. Sausage suddenly seemed very appetising.

"Vegetarian, huh?" Tom pursed his lips. "Hippie parents or your own meagre attempt at rebellion?"

"Uh, neither, I just don't-"

"Like meat?" Tom guessed rather accurately. He nodded to himself like he already knew and carried on walking, picking up two plastic trays on his way. She made herself tear her eyes away from his midnight kissed hair, and instead looked around the hall  
in search of a familiar face with glasses, a rather enduring scar and what could only be described as a mop of hair. Hermione glanced across a table and instead caught one of the guys Tom was hanging out with earlier staring at her. It was Mr My hair  
is so blonde it might just be white. Well, it was one of them.

When he realised she looking back, he waggled his eyebrows in a way that Hermione couldn't make sense of but that still creeped her out a little.

Hermione turned back to Tom. He was frowning at his phone. "Why is everyone at this school so weird?"

Tom turned to look at Hermione with a perfectly tweezed eyebrow raised. "I'm going to choose not to take offence at that," he said, handing a plastic tray to her, whilst checking his phone again. "And instead I'm afraid, I'm going to have to leave you  
here. I have some business to sort out and it's getting late." He then exited the queue, not before winking of course and then strode out off into the crowd. His rather perk bottom moving as he went.

Hermione stood there, staring at his retreating form. Realising she was completely and irrevocably fucked.


End file.
